Electric drive units are increasingly employed in automotive vehicles to reduce vehicle emissions and to provide capabilities for improved vehicle dynamics. One disadvantage of the known configurations for electric drive modules concerns their size. In this regard, a relatively large electric motor and transmission are typically required and consequently, it can be difficult to package some of the known configurations into a particular vehicle. Moreover, the packaging of the electric drive unit into a vehicle can be significantly more complex when the electric drive unit is configured to provide auxiliary power to an axle that is normally driven by power produced by an internal combustion engine.